


Behind you

by Nele



Series: People in the Mirror [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4923013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nele/pseuds/Nele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the men on the ship hated the little prince, some of them more than Lieutenant Jee had bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jerkbending](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerkbending/gifts).



> Jee puts down a mutiny, for jerkbending in response to a tumblr challenge. This scene was originally written to be included in [In Confidence](http://archiveofourown.org/works/683320), but only a summary of it ended up in the final fic. Rough, no beta, hope you enjoy regardless!

Prince Zuko had not gotten much better after his inauspicious arrival in Jee’s life. He was a rude little shit who couldn’t go a day without insulting at least three people on the ship, and his uncle twice. He didn’t even bother to remember the men’s names. He never spoke to them except to bark orders and snap insults.

When Jee finally caught a couple of his more malcontent-prone men discussing mutiny, all that surprised him was that it had taken a whole five months. He decided to pretend he hadn’t he heard a thing, hadn’t noticed the extremely abrupt and suspicious silence as he walked past their angry huddle in a corner of the mess room. He wasn’t too worried, even after he caught them at it again a week later. They were all as hot-headed as any Fire Nation man, but they also had brains enough to actually think stupid plans through before moving from bad idea to execution.

That had been optimistic. When they actually tried it six months into their journey, even Jee was taken completely unawares.

Jee only realized what was happening when he woke up to the sound of a sword clattering on the floor outside his cabin, followed by angry hissing and shushing, then the living, breathing absence of noise that meant a large group of very angry men were trying to pass unnoticed.

Jee lay silent, because he didn’t know if he might be one of their targets. But the cloud of danger moved past his door. 

He slid out from between his covers, hands reaching for his clothes in the darkness - not the whole uniform, no time, but enough to make himself look impressive and in charge.

Even then, he only barely made it out in time to intercept a group of pikemen at the base of the stairs leading to the royal cabins. Every one of them was carrying at least one weapon, most of them smelled drunk, and they didn’t back down when they saw Jee.

“Sir, go back to your cabin. We’ll deal with this,” Pikeman Bao said. It looked like he was the malcontent-in-chief this time. He didn’t look actually afraid that Jee might try to stop them. Which spoke volumes about… something, Jee supposed.

“No, you won’t,” Jee corrected. “You’re going to put those weapons back where you found them, return to the mess, and crawl into your hammocks.”

Bao sneered. “No! Sir, we’ve had enough!”

Jee bared his teeth.

“What do you think General Iroh will do if you hurt the Prince?”

A few of the men flinched.

“Are you going to kill the General too? And me? And what are you going to do then? Where are you going to run to? Our nation will have the whole world conquered soon. Are you going to ask for amnesty from the Water savages?”

He waited as Bao and his little gang mulled that over. They weren’t total idiots, even when they'd had as much paint stripper as Jee suspected they had. They all knew that the Navy dealt with mutineers with the exact same thoroughness that the Army applied to deserters. Jee could think of very few successful mutinies in the past hundred years, and not a single one in which the perpetrators hadn’t been hunted down and executed within a turn of the seasons.

“Sir, you understand why we’re doing this!” Bao’s voice turned so desperate that Jee almost felt sorry for him. 

Then he pictured what these grown men were planning to do - break into a room and hold down a sleeping child and put a dozen pikes and swords through him - and the fire in his gut roiled up into his throat.

“Yes, I understand why you're angry,” Jee said, spitting sparks into Bao’s face as the man shrank back. “That’s why I’m not killing you right now. We'll discuss this later. Get out of here like Koh himself is on your tail, before I change my mind. And lower your damned voice, you’ll wake him up!” 

If he wasn’t awake already. The brat never seemed to sleep much at all. Then again, if he was awake, he’d already be over here screaming and firebending.

They left.

Jee stared after them until they turned the corner. Then he closed his eyes and breathed in, reaching out into the darkness to feel for their chi - even non-benders had a bit of it - and make absolutely sure they were really leaving.

The moment he opened his senses, he felt the blaze of firebender chi right behind him. It was hot and bright and utterly panicked.

Jee whirled around and raised his fire to illuminate the narrow stairs up to the cabins. His circle of flickering light revealed a pair of very pale feet, and then most of Prince Zuko.

He was standing at the top, in his sleeping robe, long dark hair in a loose tangle over one shoulder. His face was so far back in the shadows that Jee couldn’t make out his expression. 

Jee lifted an eyebrow, very careful not to show even a hint of the very real flash of fear that made his fire hitch.

“Sir,” he said out of pure habit.

Something was gleaming in the light, something in Zuko’s hand. A dagger, Jee realized. It was shaking like a leaf. 

Well. That ruled out the possibility that the brat had arrived only seconds earlier and had heard nothing. 

Jee watched the flickering of light on the metal with a distant sort of fascination. He knew he should be wondering if the prince would accuse him of treason for sending a group of mutineers off without even a slap on the wrist; it would certainly be justified, and Zuko was more than vicious and paranoid enough to do it. Somehow, though, all Jee was managing to think about was why on earth the crown prince of the Fire Nation was holding a _knife_ to defend himself.

“Sir,” he repeated when Zuko didn’t answer. “May we talk? Could you come down here?”

The stairway and the opening above it were narrow; even with his hand raised high in the air, Jee had difficulty making the light reach up all the way to Zuko’s face. But he could see the brat shaking his head, fast and jerky.

It was a pretty good defensive position up there. Zuko might have managed to hold them off for a few moments. He wouldn’t have stood a chance if they’d tried to rush him, though. Even if there had been only non-benders among the mutineers, anyone who’d seen the pikemen train on deck knew better than to underestimate armed non-benders who knew what to do with the sharp things they were holding. There was very little space in the corridor, but just enough to hurl a pike up the stairway and into the gut of whoever was waiting at the top.

Jee tried very hard to focus on the living, breathing boy standing above him, and not the bloody scene his imagination was supplying. The rush of relief he felt was so strong it almost made Jee feel a little dizzy. If he’d come too late… 

Thank the sun and the moon that he hadn’t come too late.

“Sir,” he tried again. “I need to talk with you. Could you please come down? They’re gone now.”

Zuko didn’t move from his perch atop the front step. He was still holding the knife, but he was pressing both hands against his belly now, as if his fire was paining him. There were beads of sweat standing on his forehead even in the deep chill of the corridor. There wasn’t a scrap of color in his face besides the mottled red of the scar.

He didn’t look like a crown prince of the Fire Nation at all. He looked like a thirteen-year-old who’d just been through the longest ten minutes of his life, hiding in the shadows while a group of armed men debated his imminent murder a few steps away.

A stab of pity made Jee soften his voice. 

“Why didn’t you cry for help when you realized they were there, sir?”

“Uncle’s in port. He wouldn't have heard me,” Zuko said. His lisp was much worse than usual.

“My cabin is right below here, sir.”

Zuko’s silence spoke louder than any words. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Jee might come to his aid if he screamed. That was…

Understandable. So wrong.

“…Sir. If I were involved in any rebellion against you, you’d know it. I’d be standing in front.”

The kid’s eyes widened a little. Oh. Maybe Jee shouldn’t have suggested the possibility that he might mutiny at all.

“Right,” Zuko said. He sounded a bit faint.

“Cry for help if it happens again, sir.”

“Will it happen again?”

Jee studied the white face above him. Brutal honesty was never a good thing to serve to superior officers; he knew that from painful experience. But the prince seemed rattled enough to listen, and he needed to hear an uncomfortable truth or two, or this really would happen again.

“It may, yes,” Jee said. “Sir, you’re making your crew miserable and asking them to risk their lives, but you won’t tell them why. They simply won’t take that for long.”

Cold silence stretched out between them.

“I need to find the Avatar.”

“Yes, sir, I know that. We don’t know _why_ …” Jee almost rolled his eyes in exasperation, but a hint of something other than mulishness in the brat’s voice - something small and begging to be understood - made him pause. 

“Sir,” he tried again, softening his voice to something he’d use on thirteen-year-olds who weren’t princes in uniform. Zuko wasn’t a regular officer. He was... small. Strange. “Sir. Can you tell me why you need to find the Avatar? In your own words? We just don’t understand why you’re so… Why.”

Zuko’s good eye widened just a fraction. He leaned forward as if his whole body was reaching for the hint of gentleness in Jee’s tone.

“I…” He seemed to struggle with something in his throat, or in his head. “I don’t know how to explain… I don’t have to explain…”

His lisp was so thick now that Jee didn’t catch the rest of the sentence.

He sighed. “Sir, you’re commanding a ship of Fire Nation men. They’re proud. They won’t honor or respect you unless you do them the same courtesy.” 

Zuko’s face flushed visibly. He seemed to shrink, a little back into the darkness, a little down into himself.

“I know that,” he said.

Jee wasn’t so sure, but he inclined his head anyway. He was overcome by a sudden, desperate need to not be here anymore. The child frightened him. The child's obvious _fear_ frightened him.

“All right, sir. It's late, you should go to bed. But think about it. Think carefully.” 

Zuko nodded. 

Jee waited to be dismissed. It didn’t happen.

After a few moments, he couldn’t stand the tension anymore, and opened his mouth to fill the silence. 

“Sir, a word to the wise. Don’t stand in full view when you’re facing non-benders who have pikes with them. There’s room enough to throw one in here, they could spear you like a fish.”

The boy’s face lost all color again so fast that Jee immediately wished for the spirits to strike him mute.

“Okay.” It was barely more than a whisper.

Jee closed his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t meant… 

“Go to sleep, sir,” he said, trying for the calming voice again. “Nothing more will happen tonight.” Because he was going to go down to the mess right now and explain to his crew in very small words that no children were going to be slaughtered on this ship, whatever the circumstances.

He waited to be dismissed, again. Zuko said nothing, again. He just stared down at Jee, good eye wide and glassy. 

He looked like he was calculating how fast he could reach the door of his room if he turned his back on Jee now, and how fast Jee would be able to move up the stairs behind him.

The chill in the air hadn’t lifted at all. It was becoming deeper, sharper, painful on the skin of Jee’s face.

“Sir, I…” _I didn’t mean to scare you_ , he wanted to say, but he could tell it was a lost cause. “I can’t leave you alone unless you tell me I can go.”

“Go away! Now!”

Jee bowed, turned, and began the long march down to the crew mess. He could feel Zuko’s stare between his collarbones, pushing him - begging him - to walk faster and not look back.


End file.
